And I’m on a roll. Here is the draft of the shade garden planting scheme. I was ruthlessly spare. Just used plants that I already possess. No great wish list.  But it’s going to look busy and hopefully will knit together in time.  I have so many hellebores down on the lower terraces it seems a shame not to use them.  I don’t know if they keep their form beyond spring, so that will be a learning curve.

The whole bed will have to be covered in a deep mulch of bark chips. And if I get desperate, I can always plant stipas in between if there are any glaring gaps.

But it feels like I have done my homework and that is it for the year’s research.  Planting up the lilac bed plus this bed, and the three little terraces on the bank will keep me busy. And trying to control the weeds is going to be a chore for the year.  I had thought about planting up the west side of the potting shed as well. But that is going to have to wait for another year.  Besides, I’m still going to have to find a place to put all the little flowers I grow from seed and the plants that haven’t found a home yet in the grand scheme. I want to sow more rudbeckia (the lovely green wizard variety) plus try out plenty of plants that may become cut flower material. And generally keep it as my trial beds.

Hopefully next year there will be a lot more sunshine in this part of the garden if Michel keeps up his pruning work. And all I will have to do is try and keep it more weed-free next year. Put down weedproof fabric perhaps? We shall see.

And then there is the small matter of planting up the bank just above the pool. The very helpful team at Knoll Gardens have done their calculations for me. It is going to take at least 75 two-litre plants of pennisetum ‘Hameln’ to cover the area. So that will be fun.

And now that all that homework is done I shall put away my reference books, turn the notice boards to the blank side. Tidy away and get back into the kitchen and make mounds and piles of christmas pies and biscuits.

Well at long last I have a plan: a nascent one. But it is at least something to aim for. I have gone for lots of grasses. The anemanthele (stipa arundinacea) are sitting on the terrace here as I type – sparkling in the low London sun. I bought three of them at the RHS London Halls on Tuesday. And thus the endless transporting of plants across the Channel is set to continue.

I have decided to call this the Lilac bed rather than the Deutsia one as we just don’t know how long the wretched shrub (some call it Mock Orange) will be there. It has one main feature – it’s scent. And guess which happens to be the only example of a Mock Orange tree that has absolutely no perfume in spring whatsoever? Yep, ours. It puts on mighty amounts of growth and his rather dull. And shades the rest of this bed. The previous owner, Ine, tried to plant lavender under this thuggy beast. And the poor plants were leaning way out of their comfort zone and barely surviving. So after this year’s pruning, I think the shrub can have another year of grace and we shall see.

And at long last I can offer you the scaled drawing of the garden and houses on one single image: that didn’t take too long to post now. Just promised from weeks back.

This afternoon if all goes well (and I really should be baking mince pies and making Russian Tea Cakes) I will start to try the hardest of all the garden schemes : the big shade garden up near the potting shed. Eek.

I am storing pictures on the desktop that haven’t been slotted into their appropriate diary entry. So apologies for the sudden snow melt (which hasn’t happened) but here are some photographs of the garden.

First up some hard landscaping work. Nicolas has almost done the little wall that abuts the steps down to the pool. He can’t use the cement when the temperature is below 5C. And of course, he would have to dig out the steps first if he were to keep on with the task right now.

And then there are the clever steps that don’t require anything more than strength, a handy forest for the wood and an eye for design. These are the steps that lead down to the potting shed. Made with chestnut logs and just two pegs hammered in front to stop them moving. There is a bit of work to get the line right and the spacing. Especially as we have so many rocks in the way.

What else have we in the photo bag? Mache planted in their neat rows. Eighty of them no less. But what a shock to see brown earth and green grass. And here is a wonky row of garlic planted at the end of last month. Wish I could have put in the twenty five more that are languishing in the shed. And the first part of my cloche collection: the spring lettuce (mache, swiss chard and random seasonal greens) all tidily away. And unaware of the snowfall that would engulf them just a few days later.

Any more leftovers? Yes, here are some cuttings I struck from the fruit bushes. Plus the picture of the third mini terrace in the process of being built. Right now it has three calamagrostis Karl Foerster and a tonne of snow.

And last but not least – the shrouded pots in the potting shed. Covered up but still freezing. I know just how they feel. Right then, up to date. Time to go and soak the gloves.

Thirty centimetres of snow has fallen over the past 24 hours according to weather reports. And I don’t think they are far out.  There are mache plants buried somewhere under there. And the poor artichokes – I pondered last night just how I could help them with the weight of this snow: and may make some sort of tepee for them aafter I have gone out and bashed more snow from the olive trees. The one just below the bedroom window is leaning even more than ever.

Back in at lunch to defrost: and the vegetable garden has been dug out for another day; the olives have had their bashing and the orchard trees have been inspected. This can’t go on. I have made a temporary teepee for the artichokes by stacking pine branches against the wall. But I have a better idea. Time to put the enviromesh netting onto the newly built cloches. And I had a stab of nostalgia as I was building them (or was that the bitter cold wind in the calabert, my place of work?). The last time I used this bug and cabbage moth butterfly protection was out in the allotment in north London. That feels like aeons ago.

By a miracle the netting was in good nick, and even better, it fitted over the frames. Oh joy unbounded when one can wield a staple gun and work with gusto. Out they went into the vegetable bed and if they don’t blow away they may just save the crops for another day.

To celebrate such a nifty job, I took myself off down to the letterbox to collect mail and generally crunch through the perfect snowfields. Crunchy and clear. Only the faint deer marks where Daisy has descended to the lower terraces. But it’s still snowing lightly. Even had to stoop to putting on the central heating for a few hours when I returned. (The Nutella had chilled in its jar.) Fancy.

And once defrosted and toasty, it was up to the potting shed to sort out the garlic. I had hoped to be able to plant them up in the ground. No chance of that, I couldn’t find the top vegetable bed if I tried. And I had hoped that they could just lurk in their small pots for a bit longer. But the roots were pushing out the bottom and threatening to colonise the entire shed. Nothing for it but to pot on into the slightly bigger (but very tidily stored) pots.

There’s no room in the shed so they have to go on the ground for a bit. And that’s going to be very tempting for the population of small rodents / creatures that seem to be creeping in. I noticed that the sweet peas are taking a munching under their cloches. But do they like garlic? We shall see. I know they will enjoy the broad beans. But I felt the urge to sow something in this unforgiving weather. Makes one dream of spring.

And then when there was nothing more to do (even swept the floor and made a makeshift cardboard walkway to get around the pallets that serve as flooring), I collected all the gardening gloves with the intention of washing and darning them overnight. Sad or what? At least the sun has come out and it has stopped snowing.

Oh my, did I say snow was forecast? It is a very different scene from just the day before. First task apart from gawping at the fast disappearing car under a dusting of snow was to go out and do a bit of de-icing. These olive trees are not meant to be bowed down under the weight of an alien weather front. A good thwack with the broom and they turned back into trees and not stooped old men.

The vegetable garden looked rather festive and odd; hummocked shapes that used to be cabbage, purple sprouting brocolli and kale. In I waded, trying to remember where I planted the leeks.

By the time I got round to the herb garden I realised the peril of the frost hardy plants. How cold or snowed under can artichokes go? The leaves are so much more fragile than the mighty thyme and rosemary bushes which revived with a hefty swipe of the glove. I gently dusted as much as I could. But as it keeps on snowing this is going to be a tricky task.

The trees in the orchard look fine so far. But what a shock.

Once all the vegetables were unearthed, I mooched up to the shed. I wondered why dusk was falling so early; until like an idiot I realised that it was just the volume of snow on the perspex roof. Very gloomy and a bit like living in a cave. I swept the snow off the edges with a long handled rake, but it wasn’t madly effective.

Still, I did manage to tidy all my pots and have a stab at a general tidy.

Grey and threatening with snow forecast tomorrow. So I am throwing myself into work as fast as I can.

Now that Michel has radically pruned the monster chestnut tree this is nowhere to hide my leaf mould bags that I had stacked under its branches. So I have moved them up to the top potager and hidden them (not very well) behind the compost bins. No photos as they are about as photogenic as the contents of the compost bins. Luckily the water troughs are the same lurid blue as the bags. In a year they will be fine, but for now a bit of an eyesore.

Now that the area beside the property has been exposed it was time to rake away a few feet of drying chestnut leaves and burrs and dig down into the lovely soil underneath. A few decades of falling chestnut leaves has made a fine rich soil. So all I needed to do (oh sciatica where is thy sting?) was dig it out and move the soil about the place.

First off was to cover up the buried electricity pipes up near the peach trees. This is going to be a great improvement in spring when we can mow this part of the orchard rather than rely on the strimmer. And then I realised that this is going to be a slow project if I am going to nurse the recovery process: so I am just going to pile it up beside the trial beds and work on it later.

Being that close to the flowers on this side of the shed, I uncovered the sedums I had sown last spring. Time to do a bit more planting of the future flower garden. The seeds came from the RHS annual seed delivery. With the chaotic system of sowing and planting and abandoning to the elements last year I’m amazed they survived. Naturally they were in the wrong spot – too shaded to flower. But it was time to get them out and into the small top terrace on the sloping bank above the potting shed. I found the label that had been planted with them (along with a few that didn’t survive alas). Sedum stoloniferum. No idea even what colour they will be. But hopefully they won’t clash too much with all the Sedum Autumn Joy I want to plant up there. (Checked on the internet – a dusky pink, hurrah.)

And now I’m in for lunch at the late hour of 2:30pm. Well, I actually snacked on a surprise find on the terrace below the potting shed: escaped land cress. Very tasty and tangy, and it gives me an idea to plant up all the ones in the vegetable garden I no longer need. (Oh, yes and I planted up eleven verbena bonariensis plants that weren’t in the right spot on this terrace. Too tall for the small wall.

Knackered from digging but well worth the halfway finished job. So much for nursing the back. I came up with a cunning plan for getting a lot of soil down the terrace and onto the area behind the swimming pool wall. It is short a few feet of soil. And just twenty feet above and to the left is a hoard. But first I had to clear all the leaves away from the potential soil slide. That took ages. With plenty of trudging to the woodshed to offload yet more sticks for the chipper. Stockpiling nicely.

I decided the leaves and mess could just stack up on the little terrace on our neighbour’s property. This is the no man’s land forty feet of terracing that belongs to the absent Ardèche farmer who cannot build on it, but doesn’t want to sell it to Jean-Daniel who sorely needs more land. So it deteriorates with brambles and this monster chestnut tree that is causing so much work.

One bonus of raking all the leaves onto the terrace was finding a few hellebore gems hidden amongst the brambles. Up they came and I have whipped them into the shade garden. I don’t know how they will transplant as they are already in prehistoric looking flower. So I will have to wait and see. But it’s all a bit of instant gardening.

And naturally instead of getting on with more digging, I decided to do my first bit of drift planting. Here are the lilies that had been sitting in pots in the vegetable garden all year. Out of their confinement and into the ground.

Then after a quick painkiller and a slug of tea it was on with the soil work. Working like a demon I have it halfway to its location. But cannot possibly heave any more soil today. Aching.

Ah, nothing like digging in the dark: dusk was falling as I started turning over a quadrant of the vegetable bed. And I realised that I really would have to stop when I couldn’t see the fork in front of me – nor more importantly the fleshy thick weeds. And those I want to yank out and dispose of properly. These vegetable beds have been under the weedproof fabric since the summer and things are wonderfully clean under there. No slugs, no weeds (apart from those few monster ones that come up easily with a fork.) It was just me and the mole tunnels.

They do enjoy the freedom of a safe run. The black fabric and a covering of bark chips is heaven for them. No wonder the garden is riddled with busy mounds. They can scuttle under the fabric for a good ten metres of garden.  Well they will be delighted to know that once I have turned the garden, given it a mulch and a rest for the winter the fabric is going back down in the spring. Earlier Ronnie and Yvonne came over for tea and an inspection of the garden, (and new orchard) we even ventured as far as the vineyard. And my it does look clean. I must thank Nicolas for he must have strimmed in between the rows this autumn. All ready for me to Do Something Later. Like get rid of the weeds, prune the vines, get a grip. I will never become a winemaker with this attitude.

Earlier I did manage to clean up the courtyard planters: out with the bulbs and on with the mulch. And plant some calamagrostis Karl Foerster grasses in the bank planters. What do I call them? They are the flower beds on the sloping bank above the potting shed. Prizes for anyone who can come up with a name. Right now they look rather bare and sparse, but I will get the Joe Pie Weed plants (Eupatorium purpureum) and some Echinacea before the spring as companions and build from there.

One fun thing was to get the anemanthele lessonia grasses in underneath the mirabelles in the shade garden. They are my first plants in that area and quite a momentous occasion. Apparently they thive in shade and even self sow. Now that’s what I call a great grass. And evergreen. Even better. While waiting for my guests I did do a bit of festuca grass lifting. There are plenty of these grasses (weeds) dotted about the property and I want to use them as edging plants around the paths. Nothing like free ornamental grasses. But I need to do it early in the morning when the light is right. I couldn’t see in the low sunlight any really good specimens. But did unearth three and move them to the path near the chestnut tree. Another part of the garden to which I will have to name. The wooden steps perhaps. The chestnut stairs. We shall see ( perhaps after a cleansing ale things will get more prosaic).

What else did I do today? Planted a cranberry, collected armfuls of sticks from the pruned chestnut tree beside the edge of our property. If the weather turns too nasty I will have plenty of sticks with which to chip and make mulch. And the benefits of listening to gardeners question time while I worked payed off in the lawn. Fruit trees cannot bear competition from lawns in their early years sayeth the experts. And even though I spent a day doing the right thing with all the orchard fruit trees, the one near the blackberries and lower vegetable garden was positively cramped by its fluffy lawn covering. So down went a mulch and in the spring I shall heed the admonition and get some weed proof fabric over it smartly. Right. Enough prevarication. Back to painting the office ceiling.

Planting trees in the sun: it’s cold but I am shedding layers as I work. The soil is soft and rather full of worms: digging is a delight. But it has taken all day. Mind you to give a whole day to plant an orchard of nine fruit trees is no bad investment. Lots of truging long distances up to get wire cutters for the deer proof fencing, or more water, or trowels.

So here is the orchard on the terrace below the pool:

* Apricot – Fereley
* Nectarine – St Julien
* Peach – Avalon Pride
* Apple – Discovery
* Apple – James Grieve
* Apple – Falstaff

The Avalon Pride peach is apparently able to withstand peach leaf curl. We shall see, and I chose the apples so that in theory they will ripen at different times. If all goes well the Discovery will be ready to pick at the end of August, the James Grieve September and the Falstaff Octber. But then again we may get a late frost or the bees won’t pollinate and I will just have pretty trees and no fruit. But you have to be optimistic and plan for next year’s fruit bowl.

And on the lower terraces surrounding the established apples:

Apple Court Pendu Plat
Apple Blenheim Orange
Apple Winstone

These are the bigger trees on MM106 rootstock, so need more space to grow. The hardest work was to get the mulch and the watering done. And the wretched deer proof cages. I am not sure how they are going to withstand a strong wind. At the moment they are propped up with stones. But if I can get some sturdy pegs that would be better. And I’m determined to get the weedproof fabric on now as I am sure to be busy in spring and then forget. And these fruit trees need to be weed-free for as long as possible. No doubt they willl suffer drought – it’s a long walk down to the lower terraces with a heavy bucket of water.

On one of my trips to the mulch supply I saw a mole digging as I walked past. It was quite a treat as the soil was flying out of an established mole hill. I didn’t see him/ her but had a bit of a dig down into the pile just in case. Goodness only knows what I would have done with it if I managed to see it. But it was diverting.